Abstract: Under the background of advancing the construction of a strong sports country and a national governance system, this paper, using the methods of literature, and comparative analysis, explored the governance system and characteristics of competitive sports in American universities from the institutional system and specific system. The study shows that competitive sports in American universities has a systematic institutional governance system, which includes a "multi-level hierarchical" multi-coordinated governance system, a "top-to-bottom" interlinked governance structure, a "mutual-connected" collaborative governance mechanism, and a differentiated governance model of member schools; the implementation of the basic governance of the federal regulations, the compensatory governance of the competition supporting system, the guaranteed governance of the talent selection system, and the guided governance of the multi-supporting systems; It embodies the characteristics of humanistic governance, multi-subject collaborative governance, rule of law on the basis of system, and "amateur competition". The study proposes to promote the collaborative governance of the diverse subjects of college competitive sports in China, strengthen the rule of law in college competitive sports, improve the competitive system of college student sports associations, and build a system of "trinity" governance of college student sports associations, regional sports leagues and member schools.

Key words: America, university competitive sports, institutional governance, sports governance